Winsor McCay's Little Nemo cartoon celebrated in Google Doodle

Winsor McCay, the American cartoonist and animator who created the comic strip
Little Nemo, has been remembered with a Google Doodle.

Winsor McCay's work is thought to have influenced generations of animators, including future stars of the industry such as Walt Disney.

By Alice Philipson

11:01AM BST 15 Oct 2012

Today is the 107th anniversary of the cartoonist's Little Nemo in Slumberland and for the first time, Google has featured an interactive comic strip as its home page doodle.

The animated doodle is called "Little Nemo in Google-land" and shows the story of the comic strip in a series of unfolding panels.

Winsor McCay was born in Michigan in 1869 (according to his tombstone, although the year is subject to debate) and his work is thought to have influenced generations of animators, including future stars of the industry such as Walt Disney.

His animated film Gertie the Dinosaur is considered by historians to be the first to feature a character with a likeable, realistic personality to which viewers could relate.

To make the film, McCay had to draw thousands of frames of Gertie on sheets of rice paper.

Little Nemo was published under the pseudonym "Silas" and is set in the nightly dreams of a small boy named Nemo. The drawings featured in the comic have been described as fantasy art, designed to capture the feel of a dream.

At the beginning of his career, McCay worked as a cartoonist for the Cincinnati Enquirer, a newspaper in Ohio. His first major comic strip, A Tale of the Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle, was published in 43 instalments in the paper during 1903.

The series focused on individual animals and how they adapted to living in the jungle. How the Elephant Got His Trunk and How the Ostrich Got So Tall both appeared as titles in the paper.

Later the cartoonist created a propaganda film named The Sinking of the Lusitania, which told the story of the attack on the ship. His work contained a message designed to inspire America to join World War I.

McCay died in 1934 after experiencing a brain embolism and he was buried in Brooklyn.